Murder Among Friends (The Kate Austen Mystery Series) Read online

  I nodded and shrugged at the same time. Then swallowed.

  “I told Jerry I’d take your report. Do you think you’re up to talking about it?”

  I nodded again, swallowed again.

  “Good.” He glanced over at the stove. “That coffee fresh?”

  “I made it when I was waiting for, uh, when I thought I was waiting for Mona. It’s probably cold by now though.” Michael wandered over to the stove, turned on the burner, and found a cup. “You want some?”

  My stomach turned just thinking about it.

  He poured himself a cup, then nodded in the direction of the front room. “Let’s talk in there. It looks a bit more comfortable.” He gave me a twisted smile and added, “Though not by much.”

  Michael settled into Mona’s simple, square-lined sectional, and leaned forward, arms resting on his knees. I sat next to him and let my mind drift for a moment from the business at hand. Michael has that effect on me, has since the day I first met him. A day in some ways not unlike this. I hadn’t found the body that time, but I had known the woman.

  Michael doesn’t look like a cop. Not unless you’re talking about some big-screen, Hollywood version. His voice is too gentle for one thing. As are his eyes. They’re a liquid gray-blue, and they look right at you instead of over or through you. For another thing, his hair is all wrong. It’s dark and thick, and considerably longer than the captain would like, though they seem to have reached an unspoken truce about this as well as other things.

  Michael sipped his coffee and let his eyes drift around the room. “So, let’s start at the beginning,” he said finally. “Name’s Mona Sterling, right?”

  I nodded.

  “Married?”

  “Divorced. It was final just last month. Her ex-husband is a developer. Owns a number of commercial properties, too. It was a nasty divorce, but it worked out okay in the end. Mona got a good settlement. Awfully good in fact.”

  “She must have had Keeler for a judge,” Michael humphed. He’s had experience with Keeler himself, first hand.

  “Actually, they never went to court. In spite of all the animosity, the lawyers somehow managed to work out a settlement both Mona and Gary agreed to. Though to hear Gary complain about it, you’d think he’d had it shoved down his throat.”

  “What about Mona? Did she work?”

  “She taught at Valley Community College, in the English department. She was faculty coordinator of the Women’s Re-entry Program, as well.”

  Michael looked puzzled. “That some kind of astronaut training?”

  “Re-entry into the work force,” I explained. “For women who’ve been wives and mothers for so long they’ve forgotten how to handle anything that doesn’t involve peanut butter or carpooling.”

  Michael ran a hand through his hair. The puzzled look faded but did not entirely disappear. He scratched something in his notebook. “Any kids?”

  “One. A daughter, almost sixteen. She’s on a school ski trip at the moment.”

  I didn’t know Libby well, but the very thought of a child left motherless brought on a momentary swell of panic. This was true despite the fact that the child insisted she was, for all practical purposes, an adult herself, and seemed to spend the better part of every day bitching at her mother.

  “Any idea who we notify as next of kin?”

  “There’s a sister in Seattle. Alice something. Sharon will know how to reach her. Because of Libby I guess you’ll have to notify Gary, too, but I know for a fact Mona wouldn’t want him to set foot in her house.”

  “They were still going at it then?”

  “With a vengeance.”

  “How about the daughter? She close to her dad?”

  From the little I’d seen, Libby wasn’t close to either parent. But my perspective was skewed by the fact that Anna adores her father and is young enough to still consider me, on most occasions, a confidant and kindred spirit. Mona had warned me it wouldn’t last.

  “She didn’t see her father very often,” I told Michael. “But I don’t know whether that’s the way she wanted it, or just the way it worked out.”

  He chewed on his lower lip. “How about Mona’s health?”

  “I don’t know, she seemed fine.” Except for recurring yeast infections and hot flashes that is, but you don’t take your life over something like that. “I’m sure I’d have heard if there was something seriously wrong.”

  “Did she seem depressed?”

  I shook my head.

  “Upset? Worried?”

  “Nothing out of the ordinary. Mona was always grousing about something, but I never took it very seriously.”

  Michael sighed, took a moment to stare out the window, then leaned forward and set his cup on the coffee table. “Lord, it’s hard having to break news like this to the family.”

  I nodded in sympathy. There are lots of things about Michael’s job that would bother me. It isn’t all protecting the good and punishing the wicked.

  “Mona always struck me as being so together,” I said. “So resilient.”

  He shrugged. “People are full of surprises.”

  “I can’t help thinking there had to have been something I could have done. Something I should have done.” I found myself searching my memory for the signs I’d missed, the desperate cry for help I’d blindly ignored.

  It was true Mona had wanted to talk to me. “Heavy duty stuff,” she’d said, but she hadn’t sounded desperate. Then, with a wave of guilt, I remembered that she’d initially wanted to get together over the weekend. But Michael had the time off and Anna was with her dad. Talking to Mona had been a pretty low priority in my life and I’d put her off until today. Would it have made a difference if I hadn’t?

  Michael gave my hand a gentle squeeze. “You can’t start blaming yourself, Kate. Anyway, it might not have been suicide. There’s the possibility of accidental overdose. A person feels a little low, tries to forget her sorrows with booze and drugs, and pretty soon she’s lost touch with a whole lot more than her troubles.”

  “You think that’s what it was?”

  “Hard to tell. The coroner may be in a better position to say, but truth is, we’ll probably never know for sure. Not unless she left a note, and nothing along those lines has turned up so far.”

  Either way, I couldn’t help feeling I ought to have picked up on the fact she was troubled. “How long do you think she’s been dead?”

  “I can’t say for sure. More than twenty-four hours though.”

  Just then a uniformed officer I didn’t recognize came into the room and handed Michael a folded section of newspaper. “Jerry said to let you know we found this under the sofa. Just an old out-of-town newspaper, but he said he wouldn’t want you to think he was holding out.” The officer looked embarrassed. He was obviously no stranger to Jerry’s defensive posturing and rather vocal resentment of the detective division.

  Michael flipped the paper open. “St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Is that where she’s from?” he asked me.

  “No. She’s from somewhere around Boston. Went to school in the east, as well.”

  He shrugged and handed the paper back. “Tell Jerry thanks.”

  There were footsteps in the hallway just then, and a muffled shuffling sound. I turned in time to see a stretcher being wheeled down the hallway. A stretcher bearing a shapeless form covered from head to toe with black plastic. My stomach lurched suddenly, as though the floor beneath me had taken a sudden drop. I stood unsteadily and made a beeline for the bathroom. Some nice person had already lifted both the lid and seat. Good thing, I wouldn’t have made it otherwise.

  When my stomach finished acting up, my eyes started in. Huge wet tears appeared from nowhere and began snaking down my cheeks.

  Mona. The body.

  How could this have happened? What had pushed her to the limit?

  My head filled with images of Mona as I had known her in life. Always talking, always moving, often laughing. She was an attractive woman. Tall
and shapely, the kind of sleek, dark-haired figure that caused heads to turn. It was hard to reconcile those memories with the puffed, waxy face and the lifeless expression I’d encountered in the den.

  Michael appeared at the door a moment later with a glass of water and a sympathetic half-smile. “It’s never easy,” he said.

  I took the water, wiping my eyes with my fist.

  “You want me to give you a ride home? We can come back for your car whenever you feel up to it.”

  “I’ll be okay. I’ve got to go by Sharon’s and get Anna anyway.”

  “How about I stop by this evening with an order of Chinese food?”

  My stomach took another sweeping roll. It must have registered on my face.

  “Sorry,” Michael said, “I guess I shouldn’t have mentioned food.”

  “Definitely not.” I took a couple of deep breaths. The queasy feeling passed. “It wouldn’t work anyway. Andy’s coming for dinner tonight.”

  Michael raised a brow, then cemented his lips into a thin line. I knew he was fighting the urge to make some biting remark. Finally, discretion won out. He shrugged and said, “Another night then.”

  Chapter 3

  From the outside, Sharon’s house is as grand and imposing as Mona’s. Inside, they are worlds apart. Sharon’s decor, like her personality, tends toward the casual and comfortable. She pulls it off with flair though, so the ambiance is one of inviting warmth rather than clutter.

  We sat in her kitchen sipping coffee and trying to make sense of Mona’s baffling death. We weren’t having much luck.

  “How could she have done this?” Sharon lamented, pressing her fingers hard against her temples.

  I shook my head. I’d been asking myself the same question for several hours and I was no closer to an answer.

  “How could she laugh and gossip with me over a routine cup of coffee, then a couple of days later go kill herself? Why didn’t she say something?”

  “Maybe she didn’t want to worry you.” It was lame, but I was kind of short on answers.

  “It doesn’t make sense, Kate. Besides, Mona wasn’t the type to take her own life.”

  “There’s a type?”

  “There’s definitely a non-type.”

  “You think it was accidental then?”

  “It had to be.” Sharon sighed, ran a hand through her dark curls, and scowled into her coffee. “Except that Mona was usually pretty careful about mixing drugs and booze.”

  “She had company earlier that evening.” I explained about the full ashtray and the glasses which smelled of alcohol. “Maybe she’d had more to drink than she realized. You know how she was when she got to talking.”

  Sharon nodded lamely. “I guess it’s possible.”

  We lapsed into glum silence while Sharon refilled our cups.

  “Did you reach everyone about canceling today’s meeting?” I asked, grasping at the chance to talk about something besides death.

  “Everyone except Claire. She wasn’t going to be able to make it anyway. Jodi has one of her ear infections so they were going to see the doctor. I left a message on her machine, although she’ll probably see the police cars first. You know Claire, she’ll have worked herself into a grade A state of agitation before she even gets my message.”

  Claire Jorgensen and her daughter lived at the back of Mona’s property in what had once been the caretaker’s cottage. Claire was a humorless, slouch-shouldered woman who found more things to worry and whine about than the Communist conspiracy folks. None of us knew her well since she’d moved to town only that fall, and then kept pretty much to herself. I’d thought that being involved with the auction might bring her out of her shell, but so far she’d managed to miss half the meetings and do nothing at those she did attend but chew on her bottom lip.

  “We’re going to have to reschedule,” Sharon said, “but there’s no way I can deal with that right now.”

  I nodded. The school auction, the major fundraiser of the year, was only a week away. The kindergarten parents had been assigned ticket sales, so we weren’t (thank goodness) involved in any of the last minute preparations. Still, there were a few loose ends we needed to tie up.

  The phone rang just then and Sharon reached for it. “It’s probably George. I called earlier but he was out.”

  George was Sharon’s husband and longtime friend of Mona’s ex. “I can’t believe Gary’s going to need much consoling,” she said, “but George would be furious with me if I didn’t let him know about Mona right away.”

  While Sharon broke the news to her husband, I went upstairs to find Anna. She and Kyle were in the second of Kyle’s two bedrooms, the one given over to bins and boxes of toys. Tiny soldiers and plastic action figures were strewn about the room. Kyle sat near the door, sorting through his baseball cards and carrying on a nonstop monologue about stolen bases and RBIs. Anna sat at the other end of the room, her back to Kyle, arranging his collection of stuffed animals in what I recognized as party formation.

  When she saw me, she jumped up and left the animals with a stem warning to stay put. She threw her arms around my middle and hugged me. “You’re just in time,” she said. “We’re going to have tea and crumpets.” Crumpets were new. It was usually tea and scones though, to my knowledge, Anna has never actually had either.

  “I can’t stay for the party, honey. I just thought I’d come up and say hi. We’ll be going home in a bit anyway.”

  Ignoring my protests, Anna handed me an invisible cup. “Here,” she said sternly. “Just sit and catch your breath for a minute or you’ll wear yourself out.”

  I hated to think how many times each day I must have uttered those exact words to her.

  I swallowed my tea and ate a bit of crumpet, although I made the mistake of calling it a biscuit. Anna looked at me like I’d dropped plum jam on the Duchess’s white carpet

  On my way down the stairs the doorbell rang. “Can you get it?” Sharon called, “I’m still on the phone.”

  I opened the door just as the bell chimed a second time. Mary Nell greeted me in hushed tones. “How is she doing?” she asked.

  “Who?”

  “Sharon. She and Mona were so close, it must be just awful for her.” Mary Nell held up a large picnic basket stuffed with food. “I brought dinner so she wouldn’t have to worry about cooking.”

  This was typical Mary Nell. She was always dropping by with home-baked bread or a jar of the jam she’d been putting up. She remembered birthdays too, and sent get-well cards for simple colds.

  Until she and her husband moved to Walnut Hills two years ago, she’d lived her whole life in a small town somewhere in Kansas. And she’d give anything to move back. If she could, she’d probably set the clock back about thirty years, as well. Mary Nell finds life in California bewildering and often unpleasant, but to her credit she makes a valiant effort to fit in.

  “Come on,” I told her. “Sharon’s in the kitchen.”

  “Oh, no, I wouldn’t want to intrude.”

  “You’re not intruding.”

  “I didn’t know Mona all that well myself. Only through the club and our work on the Guild project for battered women. I wouldn’t want Sharon to feel I was being presumptuous.”

  “Oh for heaven’s sake. You don’t have to stay, but at least come in and give her the basket”

  Mary Nell cleared her throat “Well, if you think I should.”

  I nodded, and she followed me into the kitchen.

  We’d barely gotten ourselves seated when the doorbell rang again. I went to answer it while Sharon finished unloading the basket. She’d already oohed and aahed over a tuna noodle casserole topped with crumbled potato chips, lime Jello salad, cooked carrot topped with marshmallows, and an Oreo-crumb strawberry jam tart. Mary Nell may not know the meaning of nouvelle cuisine, but she’s a whiz at assembling a meal on short notice.

  Sharon was mumbling still another “Oh you shouldn’t have” when I reached the front door. It was Claire, looking
paler and more overwrought than ever. Jodi stood behind her, clinging to her mother’s leg.

  “I got Sharon’s message,” Claire said, speaking in a low voice so Jodi wouldn’t overhear. “I tried calling but the line was busy. She didn’t give many details.”

  “There’s not a lot to tell. Mona was dead when I got there.”

  Claire sucked in her breath. ‘You were the one who found her?”

  I nodded, envisioning once again the lifeless form sprawled across the sofa.

  “How awful.”

  I knew I was going to have to go through the whole, dreadful thing one more time. “Come on in. Mary Nell’s here, too.”

  We’d no sooner made it to the kitchen than the bell rang once again. Sharon went to answer it, returning with Laurelle Simms, who was pregnant with baby Simms number four.

  “I thought you told me the meeting was canceled,” she huffed. “Then I happen to drive by and see that everyone is here after all. Everyone but me, that is. I’d like some explanation.”

  “Kate found a body,” Mary Nell said. “A woman she knew. A woman we all knew, although Sharon knew her best. We’re here because of that, not because of the auction meeting.”

  “A body? You mean, as in a dead body?” Laurelle looked at me as though I’d gone out digging up graves.

  “We think she probably committed suicide.”

  “How ghastly.” Laurelle unwrapped the blue cash mere scarf from around her neck and tossed it over the chair back. “Who was it?”

  “Mona Sterling. You know her?”

  Laurelle blinked, shot a quick glance at the faces in the room, then dropped heavily into the chair next to Claire. “Never heard of her,” she said.

  “Her daughter’s in high school,” Sharon offered by way of explanation. The child-classmate connection was one of the main arteries of social contact.

  “Your father handled her divorce,” I added. He was handling mine too, although I was beginning to wonder if hiring him had been a mistake. He wanted to wage war, whereas all I wanted was the dotted line, ready for my signature.

  “That means your husband probably knew her, as well,” Mary Nell added. Laurelle’s husband and father were law partners.